Amphitheatre is the next battlemap for The Breaking of Forstor Nagar adventure also published by Rite Publishing. It features an amphitheater carved into the ice. The theater is round with four sections of seats surrounding an open arena with what I believe is a podium, but not one for a speaker, rather one for someone about to be fed to the lions. Not literally, but that’s what it sort of looks like. That’s about it, there’s only the amphitheater on this battlemap, just as the title says.

OVERALL

If you are running The Breaking of Forstor Nagar, then buying Amphitheatre is a bit of a must-have to assist your game. For those running urban adventures or campaigns, adding an amphitheater can be a great way to spice up your city and I recommend using it as a good-looking centerpiece.

RATINGS

Publication Quality: 10 out of 10
Amphitheatre follows the standard level of quality set forth by previous Fantastic Maps publications. There is a color and black-and-white version included along with illustrations without the grid. The battlemap is divided well amongst the multiple pages of the PDF with overlap making construction nice and easy.

Visual Appeal: 9 out of 10
Amphitheatre is a simple battlemap, but the shadowing on the seating really stands out. It does a great job of showing the different levels of the seating through the use of shading and shadowing. For such a simple battlemap, it’s extremely obvious where everything is situated from a 3-dimensional aspect.

Desire to Use: 8 out of 10
Amphitheatre obviously has a very purposeful use in The Breaking of Forstor Nagar adventure. But outside of the adventure, it would make a excellent small arena for various purposes, especially if you were a nobleman speaking to your people. The only thing I see as a drawback is the large openings between the seating sections, making the amphitheater too open. Otherwise it can make a great centerpiece in your city.

Overall: 9 out of 10
Amphitheatre is a good battlemap. If you have a large city, especially something fashion after Rome or Constantinople, having an amphitheater could be a great addition for the city’s citizens. Just think of all the gatherings that could be done in a formal location.

This product is 43 pages long. It starts with a cover and Intro. (2 pages)

Maps (41 pages)
We get one overview map on a single page. Then we get blown up maps in color and black and white for use with mini's. Also coming with it is maps for A4 size printers, maptools and jepgs with and without grids.

It ends with a OGL and Credits. (1 page)

Closing thoughts. By now you likely know the series. It is what it is and either you like them or likely don't. My only critic of this one is it would have been nice the statue and stuff in the amphitheater had a option to remove them before printing. I would have made this product have a much higher re-usability factor then. So what's my rating? I am going to give this one a 4.5 review it is exactly what it claims to do, though it could have been better.

In the tradition of the series, we first get a one-page overview of the map, complete with grids and in full color. The amphitheatre is 5 rows high, f3eatures a warrior's statue (or petrified hero?), a well and what could be either an altar, a podium or even *gasp* a dread gazebo!
20 pages are devoted to a blown-up full-color version of the map with grids to use with miniatures, while the next 20 pages belong to the b/w-version of the map.

Everybody who knows the series, knows that that's not everything, though:In the archive, we also get an A4-version of the map for Europeans like yours truly, maptool files, high res jpegs with and without grid and the same for MACOSX.

Conclusion:
The artwork of Jonathan Robert's maps is awesome and this is no different. While the cover may lead you to think that the map has the BoFN-style blue-tinge, I can assure you that it's more like a blueish grey and definitely could be ice, but doesn't have to be, which is nice, as it adds to the versatility of the map. The statue, podium and rows of seats add to the possibilities the map offers for adventurers. I would have loved to have them removable, though: Sometimes you want an empty amphitheatre. Due to this feature not being here and the potential to perceive this map as a bit cluttered, I'll settle for a final verdict of 4 stars: Great map, could be better if there was some way to hide the statue etc.